An Awful Pretty Girl
by emuroo
Summary: Have you ever wondered why Ackley hated Stradlater? This story tells about a girl. A girl Ackely loved.


Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters, places, or events

Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters, places, or events. They belong to Salinger. I did not write Catcher in the Rye. I did come up with the character of Mary Johnson. If you can call it that…

Please note: This was written for a school assignment. We had to pick a relatively minor (aka not Holden) character, and write a story about something that happened to them. It had to follow from their character, but other wise it could be about pretty much anything. I chose to write about a time prior to the book. This story is about how Ackley got to hate Stradlater so much.

An Awful Pretty Girl, or Why I Hate Stradlater

Mary Johnson was an awful pretty girl. And I, Robert Ackley, was not the kind of guy anyone would call handsome. Not even halfways _de_cent. Of course, everybody knew it too. It didn't matter how I looked, though, I thought she was awful pretty.

I guess that some people didn't think so, and I'm willing to admit that there were aspects of her that weren't what everybody thinks of as perfect, but I thought she was awful pretty. She had this sort of big nose, which my roommate always said messed up her 'countnance.' I thought that it added _char_acter, though. She had a really nice smile though. When she smiled I always thought that it was like the sun came up. Before I met her that sort of thing seemed sort of dumb, but I got it after. That sort of soppy romantic stuff and all.

Then there was her hair. It was this sort of light brown, and real straight. Not the kind that even does that flip out at the ends. Just real, real straight. She was al_ways_ complaining that it oughtta be curly or whatnot, but I thought it looked fine. She had a great body too, but I won't go too far into that. Just, you oughtta be aware that it was great, because that's the only reason that sonuvabitch1 ever- But I'm getting ahead of myself.

At any rate I thought she was _grand_, but most guys didn't on account of her nose and all. It was my sophomore year, and there was this dance. My school, Pencey, it's all guys, but sometimes we have dances and stuff with this girls school, I forget the name, but it's close by.

So I'd never gone to one before, on account of not having a girl to go _with_, and, to be perfectly honest I never thought I'd go, cause what girl would ever be worth it? If she was, she'd only turn me down anyway.

But this time, this time was going to be different. I was sure of it. This time I would ask Mary. She'd say yes, and we'd go and we'd have a grand time. I wasn't even afraid of being turned down. Like I said she was awful pretty. Not just that though, she was so nice. She'd always say hello to me, even when no one else _look_ed at me.

So the week before the dance there was a game. Everyone at school always goes to the games. Everyone but me. No one really wants me there, so I don't go. But this time I went, because Mary was there. A bunch of the girls always come to the games.

I decided at halftime that I should go ask her. On my way over to where she was, I ran into Stradlater. At the time I didn't hate him. That changed fast enough. He's a sonuvabitch, and you'll see why I hate him so much once I'm done with the story. So I bumped into him.

He said "Hey, Ackley, right?" Just like him not to have learned his roommate's name. Did I mention that? Him being my roommate? Not anymore of course. Not after- Right. Not getting ahead of myself. At the time I just nodded. He asked "So, you're at that game? Haven't seen you at any yet."

"Yeah. I been busy. Getting settled and all." I didn't want to talk to him. I wanted to see Mary.

"So, ya got a couple of bucks you could lend me? Couch says he'll let me take his car," my eyebrows shot up at that, kids weren't supposed to have cars I thought. I didn't understand at the time that _athletes_ got special treatment. I was a stupid kid at the time. He continued, "But he says I gotta pay him for the gas I'm gonna use."

"Where're you gonna go?"

"I'm going out with one of the girls from the other school, you don't know her."

I thought about it for a minute. "Sure. As long as you get that lend doesn't mean _give_." He nodded and I gave him the money. He grinned, thanked me, and clapped me on the back.

I forgot about it for the moment and went on to see Mary. Once I got over to her I was nervous as heck. Still, I really wanted that date. So I said, "Hello. I'm Robert Ackley."

She looked up in surprise. Then said, "I'm Mary Johnson, nice to meet you."

Then I said something that _really_ made me sound like an idiot. "Yeah, I know."

She blinked, then smiled. I hoped she hadn't noticed how dumb I was acting. "So," she said, starting up conversation, "do you know Stradlater?"

I blinked. "Um, yeah. We're roommates and stuff."

She smiled brilliantly. She was awful pretty when she smiled. "Oh," she said in this delighted tone of voice, "_really_." She sounded fascinated. I figured I must be doing something right. "What's it like being his roommate? Is he an interesting person?"

Since she seemed to like this subject so much I continued, "Oh, yeah. Definitely. Very interesting." Then I decided to go for it. "So, Mary. Are you going to be going to the dance next week?" she nodded, "Great, great. Um, would you like to, um, to go with me?" I held my breath, waiting for her answer.

She paused, and looked at me, sort of sizing me up I guess. Then she glanced over at the direction I'd come from. I followed her gaze, but all that was over there was Stradlater leaving with some girl. She looked back at me, smiled this sort of odd smile, which I put down to excitment, then said, "Yeah. Sure. Why not."

I was grinning from ear to ear, "Great. I'll meet you at the entrance, say, ten minutes early?"

She nodded. Then the game started again. I sat with her for the rest of the night, then left to go back to the school.

When the day came I got sort of dressed up. Not a lot or a anything, but a bit nicer than normal. We met up and went in. We talked for a while about all sorts of things. Well, really, we talked a lot about Stradlater. I was too much of an idiot to get it though. At any rate, we danced for a while. That was great. Dancing with her, I mean, not talking about the sonuvabitch.

She was wearing a very nice dress, sort of blue, to match her eyes and stuff. She really did look _aw_ful pretty that night. I thought I was the luckiest guy in the whole room, dancing with such a pretty girl and all. After a while she said she wanted to take a rest. I would probably have said yes to _anything_ she asked at the time, so I agreed, and we went off to the edge of the room.

She said she was sort of hot, so I offered to go get her some drinks. She said sure, thanks. So I went off. It took quite a while to get through all the kids. When I finally got back to where we'd been, she wasn't there any more. I asked one of the guys nearby and he said he hadn't seen her since she went off with Stradlater. I looked around for him, then spotted him in the crowd.

There he was on the floor, dancing with her. There he was, sonuvabitch dancing with _my_ date. I couldn't believe it. Think I must have stood there gaping for a whole minute at least. Then one of her friends comes up to me, one of the ones who sat with her at the game. "What are you looking so shocked about?"

"Mary. She over there dancing with that sonuvabitch Stradlater! What does he think he's doing, stealing my date?"

"Don't be silly. She agreed after all. That's who she wanted to go with from the beginning, didn't you know? She just knew he was already going with someone else, and you knew him, so it was a good chance to get to go with him once she got here. He's already ditched his date, then came over to talk to her. But really, did you actually think she wanted to go with you?"

She turned and walked off. I couldn't do anything but stare at her back. I turned back to Mary, there in her dress, still looking awfull pretty, staring up at Stradlater with this utterly besotted look on her face. I left soon after. I wasn't going to stand there and watch them, was I?

Stradlater didn't get back until late that night. I _know_ that he did… stuff with her. I was so mad when he got back, I hit him. I really did. It was a dumb thing to do, he's way stronger than I am, but that's what I did. He was talking about how great the dance was. And the kicker was, he didn't even know her name! He thought it might, _might, _ have been Meg.

After I hit her the principal moved me, not far, just switched me with one of the guys in the next room over. Said he didn't want me "Disturbing the peaceful learning environment which we at Pencey try so hard to maintain." What a load of garbage. Either way, my room was switched, and I swore of dances and games for the remainder of my high school career.

Still, Mary Johnson was an awful pretty girl.

Author's note: I hope that you enjoyed this. If you have the time please give me a review, I will respond to all signed reviews.

1 This is what Ackley calls Stradlater in the book, so I felt that using a slight swear was justified in terms of honoring his speech patterns.


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